US envoy admits role in Aldo Moro killing - Telegraph World News US envoy admits role in Aldo Moro killing Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister, who was seized at gunpoint by the Red Brigades in 1978 By Malcolm Moore in Rome 12:01AM GMT 11 Mar 2008 An American envoy has claimed that he played a critical role in the fate of Aldo Moro, the former Italian prime minister who was murdered by terrorists in 1978. Steve Pieczenik, an international crisis manager and hostage negotiator in the State Department, said that Moro had been "sacrificed" for the "stability" of Italy. In a new book called We Killed Aldo Moro, Mr Pieczenik said he was sent to Italy by President Jimmy Carter on the day that Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, a far-Left terrorist group. Moro, who had been prime minister for a total of more than five years between 1963 and 1976, was snatched at gunpoint from his car in Rome.

Related Articles Sting nets Moro kidnapper 18 Jan 2004 He had been heading to parliament for a crucial vote on a ground-breaking alliance he had proposed between the Christian Democrat Party and the Italian Communist Party. The alliance enraged both sides of the political spectrum in Italy, and also upset both Moscow and Washington. Moro's widow, Eleonora, later said Henry Kissinger had warned her husband against his strategy. "You will pay dearly for it," he is alleged to have said. Mr Pieczenik said he was part of a "crisis committee" headed by Francesco Cossiga, the interior minister. Moro was held for 54 days. Mr Pieczenik said the committee was jolted into action by the fear that Moro would reveal state secrets in an attempt to free himself. A false statement, attributed to the Red Brigades, was leaked saying that Moro was dead. Mr Pieczenick said that this had a dual purpose; to prepare the Italian public for the worst, and to let the Red Brigades know that the state would not negotiate for Moro, and considered him already dead.

The following month, Moro was shot and placed in the back of a car in central Rome, midway between the headquarters of the Communist Party and the Christian Democrats. In a documentary on French television last weekend, Mr Cossiga admitted the committee had taken the decision to release the false statement. EuroNews - Interview - The truth about Aldo Moro's murder? - YouTube EuroNews - Interview - The truth about Aldo Moro's murder? Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on May 10, 2008 Thirty years ago this month, the extreme left terrorist group, the Red Brigades murdered former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro who they'd kidnapped and held for nearly two months. Moro was the head of the Christian Democratic Party, which was moving towards a parliamentary coalition with the Italian Communists, a move opposed by some in the far left and which worried western power, particularly the US.

Italy's interior minister at the time was Francesco Cossiga, who took a hard line and refused to negotiate with the Red Brigades for Moro's release. In an interview with Cossiga, EuroNews has tried to get at the truth of an incredibly tangled tale involving allegations of CIA involvement and claims of vital clues sent via a Ouija board. Category The truth about Aldo Moro's murder? | Euronews The truth about Aldo Moro's murder? Now Reading: The truth about Aldo Moro's murder? Today's Top Stories last updated: 09/05/2008 Euronews Thirty years ago this month, the extreme left terrorist group, the Red Brigades murdered former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro who they’d kidnapped and held for nearly two months. Moro was the head of the Christian Democratic Party, which was moving towards a parliamentary coalition with the Italian Communists, a move opposed by some in the far left and which worried western power, particularly the US. Italy’s interior minister at the time was Francesco Cossiga, who took a hard line and refused to negotiate with the Red Brigades for Moro’s release.

In an interview with Cossiga, EuroNews has tried to get at the truth of an incredibly tangled tale involving allegations of CIA involvement and claims of vital clues sent via a Ouija board. EuroNews : “You’ve been accused of refusing to negotiate with the Red Brigades, because you actually wanted Moro to be killed.” Francesco Cossiga: “Why would I have wanted Moro’s death? If I hadn’t refused to negotiate the state would have collapsed and we would have found ourselves in a crisis, which it would have been very difficult to get out of. And on top of that I was nothing compared to someone like Moro. EuroNews: “There are some who say that as long as Cossiga and Andreotti are alive, the truth about what really happened with Moro will never been known.” Cossiga: “There are some who don’t want to accept this one thing: that Aldo Moro was killed by the Red Brigades. Some in the former Christian Democratic Party – who turned Moro into an icon, a left-winger, an enemy of the United States – they don’t want to accept that Moro was killed by people from the left.

It must inevitably be that he was killed by the right, by the Americans, by the CIA. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work for them.” EuroNews: “You never believed Italian politician Romano Prodi’s explanation that he heard the name of the street where Moro was held at a seance. Why would Prodi lie about that?” Cossiga: “He didn’t lie, he said that because he didn’t want to reveal his sources, especially at a time like that. But even now, if he revealed who told him, I don’t know how long his informant would remain alive. He and the others invented this story of a seance and words spelled out on Ouija board to be able to make the information public and protect their source.” EuroNews: “A US hostage negotiator, Steve Pieczenik, who you brought to Italy to advise on getting Moro released, has said that a statement – supposedly from the Red Brigades – that Moro’s body was in Lake Duchessa, 100 kilometres north of Rome was false and put out by the government.

He implied that statement was intended to test what Italian public opinion would be to Moro’s death.” Cossiga: “It’s important to note that after the Lake Duchessa message, the resistance to negotiating weakened considerably: it was then that the leaders of the Christian Democratic Party, including me – who had decided on this tough, no negotiation policy – changed their approach. It was then that the Socialists started negotiations. The Socialists did not trust us, and wanted to carry out the negotiations on their own. If they had talked to me about who they made contact with, we would probably have been able to find where Moro was being held.” EuroNews: “In France the so-called Mitterrand Doctrines, under which Italian far-left activists who fled to France were not extradited, seems no longer to be in place. Is France collaborating with Italy over the extradition of alleged terrorists? Cossiga: “You want my opinion? So many years have passed. You know I’m the person who was branded a Nazi, and accused of being responsible for torture and ordering killings, and lots, lots worse.

I always felt there should be a blanket amnesty, that we should draw a line under the whole period when it was almost like a civil war, rather than reviewing the individual cases.” EuroNews: “One of those France wouldn’t extradite was novelist Cesare Battisti, is he also a murderer?” Cossiga: “He’s both. Being one doesn’t exclude being the other. It’s as if you’d asked me if Caravaggio was a major painter or a violent man, who killed someone in a bar fight : he’s one and the same.” EuroNews: “Outside Italy, Berlusconi’s election victory has been greeted with irony, scorn, even some embarrassment. Are those other countries being snobbish, or is Italy really an anomaly?” Cossiga: “The first person to telephone him was Spain’s Prime Minister Zapatero. The second, who reacted enthusiastically, was Wilfried Martens, the President of the centre-right European People’s Party. Tony Blair, who was in Rome at the time, met with the left-wingers Massimo D’Alema, Walter Veltroni, and Francesco Rutelli, but who did he have dinner with? Mr Berlusconi.

And it’s important to note that I didn’t vote for him. And you must keep in mind, I know the English: they are extremely snobbish.” EuroNews: “You’ve said that the exclusion of the radical left from Parliament could create the right conditions for terrorism to reappear. Are there any indications that could happen?” Cossiga: “The radical left took the extreme left as its reference point. I remember a big rally in Genoa, in memory of Carlo Giuliani, the anti-G8 demonstrator shot dead by police in 2001, a gathering which was addressed by the Senate leader, Bertinotti. He gave a very rousing speech and was enthusiastically received. The police did not intervene and at the end Bertinotti said: ‘Now, everyone stay calm and go home’ and there was no trouble. But these days, who would say something like that to them? Veltroni or Rutelli? Veltroni who is known as an admirer of Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Obama, or Rutelli, who is the spokesman for the Italian Episcopal Conference? You think they’d listen to them?

Dream on!” Share this article: BBC ON THIS DAY | 16 | 1978: Aldo Moro snatched at gunpoint 1978: Aldo Moro snatched at gunpoint Former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro has been kidnapped in Rome. Mr Moro's escort of five police bodyguards were killed when he was snatched at gunpoint from a car near a cafe in the morning rush-hour. Chief police investigator Signor Moro said 12 gunmen took part in the attack on the former prime minister as he was being driven to parliament. Police have set up dozens of roadblocks and all exits from the city are being watched. Helicopters are hovering overhead and anti-terrorist officers have been sent to the airport. The extreme left-wing Red Brigade, in a telephone call to a Rome newspaper, has said it kidnapped the Christian Democratic leader, 61. We kidnapped Aldo Moro Red Brigade spokesman A spokesman said: "We kidnapped Aldo Moro. He is only our first victim.

We shall hit at the heart of the state." The man demanded that the Turin trial of Renato Curcio, who is suspected of leading the Red Brigade, and 14 others accused of membership of the group should be suspended. Witnesses reported seeing a white Fiat car move in front of Mr Moro's vehicle, along with a man on a motorbike. The Fiat braked hard and Mr Moro's car crashed into it. Gunmen jumped out of the Fiat and others who had been waiting nearby raised pistols and sub-machine guns. Trade unions have called a 24-hour general strike and workers have left many shops and offices in the city in a shocked reaction to the kidnapping of the much-respected statesman. Investigators are examining spent bullet cases at the scene of the crime and among guns seized they found "a rarely used Soviet weapon". Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti has condemned those who took Mr Moro, saying they were "destroying the fabric of the nation and threatening to make it ungovernable". On This Day: Aldo Moro Kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigades Aldo Moro in a photo released by the Red Brigades to the media on April 20, 1978.

On This Day: Aldo Moro Kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigades March 16, 2012 06:00 AM by findingDulcinea Staff On March 16, 1978, former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped by a left-wing extremist group; he was killed 55 days later when the terrorists’ demands were not met. Many in Italy believe that domestic or international government forces were complicit in the murder of Moro, who was due to sign a controversial agreement with the Communist Party on the day of his kidnapping. Moro Kidnapped Before Compromise Two-time former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, leader of the Christian Democratic Party, had negotiated an agreement to form a coalition government with the Italian Communist Party (PCI) . Known as the Historic Compromise, it alarmed both right wing parties and the extreme left, including the Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. “The Red Brigades completely opposed this idea, as it interfered with the declared aim of spearheading an armed Marxist revolution in Italy, led by a ‘revolutionary proletariat,’” explains The Florentine.

On the morning on March 16, as Moro was en route to the House of Representatives to enact the compromise, a dozen members of Red Brigades launched an assault on his car. The extremists shot and killed five of Moro’s bodyguards and abducted him, taking him to a safe house. The Red Brigades demanded the release of 13 leftist prisoners in exchange for Moro . Throughout his captivity, Moro was allowed to send letters to political allies and family members, in which he pled with the Italian government cooperate with the terrorists. In one letter, Moro writes to Italian Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga : “Weigh your actions carefully in order to avoid further evil ... In the given circumstances, besides humanitarian reasons, what becomes apparent is the reason of state. Most of all this reason of state means that in my present condition I find myself under full and uncontrolled domination. There is the risk that I will be induced to talk in a manner that could be dangerous ... May God enlighten you for the best.” Despite pleas from his friends, family and Pope Paul VI, the Italian government, which had negotiated with the Red Brigades in previous situations, refused to negotiate for Moro .

On May 9, Moro’s body was found in the trunk of a ca r, parked symbolically between the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party. The BBC: Italy’s history of terror There are many theories that the Italian government or foreign governments were involved in the kidnapping of Moro , or that they were willing to let Moro be killed for their own political gain. At issue is the Historic Compromise, which never went through due to the kidnapping. Italy would have become the first post-war Western European country to include communists in the majority government. There were many significant opponents to the compromise: right-wing and anti-communist politicians, along with some Christian Democrats, did not want to see the Communists given power. Both the United States and Soviet Union opposed the compromise, believing that it would destabilize East-West relations. The U.S. and NATO were concerned that the deal might threaten NATO’s position in Italy. A 1978 article by journalist Mino Pecorelli, who was murdered the following year, said that the kidnapping had “the hallmark of a lucid superpower.” Pecorelli suggested that the Gladio, a covert anti-communist network in NATO, aided the Red Brigades in the kidnapping.

Proponents of this theory point to the near-perfect execution of the kidnapping as evidence that the kidnappers were aided by elite forces. In particular, the fact that the kidnappers were able to kill the five bodyguards without harming Moro suggests that a professional shooter was involved. There are also many people who believe that, even if the Red Brigades carried out the kidnapping without outside help, there were governmental figures who wanted Moro to be killed and obstructed efforts to save him . Italian authorities launched a nationwide manhunt for Moro, but ignored key leads that would have led them to the kidnappers. Furthermore, for a country known for being willing to negotiate with terrorists, it was unusual for the government to adopt a hardline stance. Steve Pieczenik, a hostage negotiator in the State Department, claimed in 2008 that Moro was “‘sacrificed’ for the ‘stability’ of Italy.” According to his book, “We Killed Aldo Moro,” the U.S. and Italian governments instructed Pieczenik to write and deliver a false statement attributed to the Red Brigades, announcing Moro’s death.

Pieczenik said the statement was presented as a means of communicating to the Red Brigades that the Italian government already considered Moro dead, thereby removing the authority they leveraged through his captivity. Richard Drake, author of “The Aldo Moro Case,” rejects the conspiracy theories that have emerged surrounding Moro’s murder . He argues that the killing more aptly represents the threats of a country captivated by Marxist-Leninist ideology: “For all those under the beguiling spell of the revolutionary mystique, the prescriptions of Marx and Lenin transformed the most bestial acts of inhumanity into thrilling deeds on behalf of the proletariat. The Moro kidnapping was just such an act.” Munich Massacre The Brigate Rosse, known as the Red Brigades, was created in 1970s by radical Marxist-Leninist students who wished to see the overthrow off the capitalist system. The most active of Italy’s paramilitary groups during the “Year of Lead,” the Red Brigades became famous for the kidnapping of prominent Italian officials and industrialists . Following the murder of Moro, the Italian government cracked down on the Red Brigades and the extreme left .

More than 10,000 leftist leaders were arrested in 1980, while many of the Red Brigades’ leaders “disavowed their political doctrine and turned their comrades into the police,” reports The Florentine. Due to the crackdown, Red Brigades fissured around the mid-1980s, splitting off into The New Red Brigades/Communist Combatant Party and the Union of Combatant Communists. The New Brigades inherited the militancy of the original Red Brigades . The New Red Brigades claimed responsibility for the assassinations of labor minister advisor Massimo D’Antona in 1999, professor Marco Biagi in 2002 and a police officer in 2003. Illuminati News: Was The Assassination Of The Former Italian Prime Minister, Ordered By Henry Kissinger Bettino Craxi (1934-2000) "America's "nobility" were doing their share to destroy the Republic of Italy, a notable contribution having come from Richard Gardner even while in his official capacity as President Carter's ambassador to Rome.

At that time Gardner was operating under the direct control of Bettino Craxi , an important member of the Club of Rome and a key man in NATO. Craxi was the leading edge of the conspirators' attempts to destroy the Italian Republic. As we shall see, Craxi was almost successful in ruining Italy, and as the conspirators hierarchy's leading player, was able to get divorce and abortion pushed through the Italian Parliament, resulting in the most far-reaching and destructive religious and social changes ever to strike at the Catholic Church, and consequently, the morals of the Italian nation. "After President Ronald Reagan was elected, an important meeting was held in Washington D.C. in December 1980 under the auspices of the Club of Rome and the Socialist International. Both these organizations are directly responsible to the Committee of 300. The main agenda was to formulate ways and means of how to neutralize the Reagan presidency.

A group plan was adopted and, as we look back, it is perfectly clear that the plan the conspirators agreed to follow has been very successful." Looking back at the explosive testimony by Guerzoni linking Kissinger to the Moro assassination, it is interesting to note it was covered extensively by the Italian media, but not a peep was heard in the U.S. as the big from the wire services and the Post and Time suppressed every word of the Guerzoni testimony to the American public. The mainstream media further suppressed key testimony by several Red Brigades members about how Moro was brutally shot to death and how they knew of high-level U.S. involvement in the plot to kill Moro. During the years following the Moro killing, I saw up close and personal how the U.S. was orchestrating terrorism in Italy, working undercover with the P2 Masonic Lodge and the Vatican, in the very same manner terrorism and a propaganda-based media is being orchestrated today in America. And to put icing on the cake, leading to a journalistic hiatus near the Adriatic Sea, came the shocking discovery that Black Ops CIA money was also controlling the English language newspaper in Rome and all the other news coming out of the American wire services.

Although the news outlets were shut off, Dr. Coleman provided a behind the scenes look at really happened to Moro even though his writings found a long and hard road, never really reaching the mainstream. "In June and July of 1982, the wife of Aldo Moro testified in open court that her husband's murder came about as a result of serious threats against his life, made by what she called "a high ranking United States political figure," writes Dr. Coleman. "Mrs. Eleanora Moro repeated the precise phrase reportedly used by Kissinger in the sworn testimony of Guerzoni: "Either you stop your political line or you will pay dearly for it." "Recalled by the judge, Guerzoni was asked if he could identify the person Mrs. Moro was talking about. Guerzoni replied that it was indeed Henry Kissinger as he had previously intimated. Guerzoni went on to explain to the court that Kissinger had made his threats in Moro's hotel room during the Italian leaders official visit to the U.S.

Moro-then Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Italy, a NATO member-country-was a man of high rank, one who should never have been subjected to Mafia-like pressures and threats. Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) "Moro was accompanied on his American visit by the President of Italy in his official capacity. Kissinger was then, and still is, an important agent in the service of the Royal Institute for International Affairs, a member of the Club of Rome and the Council on Foreign Relations. "In my 1982 expose of this heinous crime, I demonstrated that Aldo Moro, a loyal member of the Christian Democrat Party, was murdered by assassins controlled by P2 Masonry with the object of bringing Italy into line with Club of Rome orders to de-industrialize the country and considerably reduce its population. "Moro's plans to stabilize Italy through full employment and industrial and political peace would have strengthened Catholic opposition to Communism and made the destabilization of the Middle East-a prime goal-that much harder. "From the foregoing it becomes clear just how far ahead the conspirators plan. They do not think in terms of a Five Year Plan.

One needs to go back to Weishaupt's statements about the early Catholic Church to understand what was involved in the murder of Aldo Moro. Moro's death removed the roadblocks to the plans to destabilize Italy, and as we now know, enabled conspiracy plans for the Middle East to be carried out in the Gulf War 14 years later." For more informative articles, go to Greg Szymanski Greg also has his own daily show on the Republic Broadcast Network. Go to Greg Szymanski is an independent investigative journalist and his articles can been seen at He also writes for American Free Press and has his own site Listen to my Radio Broadcast live Monday night at 8pm Pacific time on LewisNews, returning Jan. 1 2006 Radio . Greg is also regular on Rense.com the first Thursday of every month at 9-10 pm pacific time.

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Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Former Italian PM Aldo Moro, From Murder Victim To Sainthood? Former Italian PM Aldo Moro, From Murder Victim To Sainthood? 09/27/12 AT 10:18 AM Close Aldo Moro, the forner Italian prime minister who was murdered by the Communist Red Brigades in 1978, may become beatified, the first step toward sainthood, according to the Rome Diocese.

In one of the most traumatic events of post-war Italian history, Moro, who had served as prime minister for the Christian Democratic party in two separate terms, was abducted in Rome on March 16, 1978, by the Red Brigades, who killed five of his bodyguards in the most brazen terrorist attack in Italy's bloody 1970s. The kidnappers demanded the release of 16 of their comrades in prison. [[nid:796513]] During his disappearance, the abductors held a mock "trial" for Moro and "sentenced" him to death. Pope Paul VI pleaded publicly for Moro’s release. The pope even offered himself to the kidnappers in exchange for Moro’s freedom. Moro’s body was found in the trunk of a car almost two months later -- symbolically, the car was parked halfway between the Rome headquarters of the Christian Democrat Party and the Communist Party. According to French and Italian media reports, Moro might now be considered a “martyr to the faith” since he was murdered by people with a deep hostility toward the Catholic Church.

Moreover, during his 55 days as a hostage, Moro reportedly asked for a Bible and also expressed the Christian act of forgiving his kidnappers. Moro, who came from the more progressive wing of the Christian Democrats, first became prime minister of Italy in 1963, with support from the Italian Socialist Party, and remained in power until 1968. After serving as foreign minister from 1969 to 1974, he regained the job of prime minister, which he held until 1976. In 1976, when the Italian Communist Party gained more than one-third of the votes in a national elections Moro (now as president of the Christian Democratic party) sought to include Communists in the cabinet -- a move that was opposed by right-wing members of the Christian Democrat party, as well as by some foreign powers, including the U.S. During his two months of captivity, Moro was permitted to write letters to friends and family, while security forces aggressively conducted a huge manhunt across the country to find him. The government (led by Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, a fellow Chridtian Democrat but of a different faction) refused to negotiate with the kidnappers.

Mario Moretti, the leader of the Red Brigades, who admitted to organizing the kidnapping and murder of Moro, was eventually sentenced to six life terms in prison. However, he was paroled in the 1990s and is allowed to work outside of prison by day, while returning at night. The murder of Moro elicited outrage not only from Italian lawmakers and security forces, but also from other left-wing militant figures, including even Alberto Franceschini, one of the founders of the Brigades, who had already been arrested by the time Moro was kidnapped. In the wake of Moro’s disappearance and killing, conspiracy theories have abounded, some even suggesting that the Red Brigades were not the real culprits, but rather the patsies of reactionaries who wanted Moro’s removal from Italy’s body politic. Some conspiracy theorists have proposed that the shadowy “Gladio network” (under the direction of NATO) orchestrated Moro’s abduction and murder over fears that he was too friendly with Communists. In fact, both Franceschini and a Communist scholar named Sergio Flamigni believed Mario Moretti was a spy who secretly worked on behalf of Gladio.

Some have speculated that the United States government may also have been involved. Reportedly, one month before his kidnapping, Moro met with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who warned him against bringing Communists into the Italian cabinet. Steve Pieczenik, a former member of the U.S. State Department, said in a 2006 documentary on Moro, "We had to sacrifice Aldo Moro to maintain the stability of Italy." However, as with the mystery surrounding the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, the theories behind Moro’s murder are numerous, but the matter may never be solved. Aldo Moro found dead - May 09, 1978 - HISTORY.com Aldo Moro found dead Publisher A+E Networks On May 9, 1978, the body of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro is found, riddled by bullets, in the back of a car in the center of historic Rome. He was kidnapped by Red Brigade terrorists on March 16 after a bloody shoot-out near his suburban home.

The Italian government refused to negotiate with the extreme left-wing group, which, after numerous threats, executed Moro on May 9. He was a five-time prime minister of Italy and considered a front-runner for the presidency of Italy in elections due in December. Aldo Moro was regarded by many as Italy’s most capable post-World War II politician. A centrist leader of the Christian Democratic Party, he served five times as prime minister in the 1960s and 1970s and promoted cooperation between Italy’s disparate political parties. When he formed his first cabinet in 1963, he included some Socialists, who were thus participating in the Italian government for the first time in 16 years. Moro last served as prime minister in 1976, and in October 1976 became president of the Christian Democrats. On March 11, 1978, he helped end a government crisis when he worked out a parliamentary coalition between the Communist Party and the dominant Christian Democrats. Just five days later, Mr. Moro’s car was attacked by a dozen armed Red Brigade terrorists. His five guards were killed, and Moro was abducted and taken to a secret location.

On March 18, the Red Brigade issued a communique claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and stating that Moro would undergo a “people’s trial.” The Red Brigade, established in 1970 by Italian Renato Curcio, employed bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, and bank robberies as a means of promoting communist revolution in Italy. The Italian Communist Party, which supported democracy and participated in Parliament, condemned the terrorist Red Brigade, and the Red Brigade accused the Communist Party of being a pawn of the bourgeoisie. Renato Curcio and 12 other Red Brigade members were on trial in Turin when Moro was kidnapped, and legal proceedings were only briefly halted after his abduction. The Italian government declined to negotiate with the kidnappers, claiming that such an action would undermine the state and throw Italy into chaos. Some critics accused the Christian Democrats of yielding to pressure from the Communist Party, whose leaders were even more strongly opposed to a dialogue with the Red Brigade. Police and the army arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists and scoured the country looking for the “people’s prison” where Moro was being held but failed to find any solid clues.

On March 19 and April 4, letters apparently freely written by Moro were delivered pleading with the government to negotiate. The government attempted secret talks, but on April 15 the Red Brigade rejected these negotiations and announced that Moro had been found guilty in the people’s trial and sentenced to death. Threats to execute him led nowhere, and on April 24 the terrorists demanded the release of 13 Red Brigade members held in Turin in exchange for Moro’s life. On May 7, Moro sent a farewell letter to his wife, saying, “They have told me that they are going to kill me in a little while, I kiss you for the last time.” Two days later, his body was found on Via Caetani, within 300 yards of the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and 200 yards from the Communist Party headquarters. According to a wish expressed by Moro during his abduction, no Italian politicians were invited to his funeral. During the next decade, many Red Brigade leaders and members were arrested, and the organization was greatly weakened.

Related Videos Red Brigade Terrorist Group Tweet The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist left wing terrorist group active in Italy in the 1970s and early 1980s. Known as ‘Brigate Rosse’ in Italian and sometimes shortened to BR, their main aim was to force Italy to leave the NATO alliance. They are most famous for the kidnap and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. During their long history of political and at times somewhat random violence they carried out approximately 14,000 acts of violence. As with many Cold War European terrorist groups they were founded by radical students, in the case of the Red Brigades by Renato Curcio, Alberto Franceschini and Mara Cagol in 1970. In the beginning there were two main groups, that of the Trento Group with strong ties to the sociology Department of a catholic university and the Reggio Emilia group headed by Franceschini which recruited mainly from the Communist youth movement. At first the groups’ areas of operations were around the University and in the industrial factories of Milan, both areas a rich source of recruits.

Operations were fairly low level, mainly factory sabotage and burglary but did include a brief kidnapping in 1972. This was about to change when the Red Brigades began to get direct aid for the Soviet block via Czechoslovakia. By 1974 the Red Brigades had committed their first murder and become a totally covert terrorist organisation, although an earlier lethal petrol bombing was mistaken blamed on the Red Brigade. In September 1974 an Italian secret service agent infiltrated the organisation and his information lead to the arrest of Curcio and Franceschini who were both sentenced to 18 years. Curcio was briefly rescued but soon re captured. Kidnapping now became the organisation’s modus operandi with the taking of several industrialists and politicians, mainly to gain ransom money to fund the organisation. The organisation was supported during its heyday by Soviet small arms and explosives provided by Czechoslovakia often via the PLO and smuggling routes for heroin, as well as training for members in Syrian camps and in Prague. (See state sponsored terrorism ). This support lead to friction between the Italian communist party and the KGB who refused to cut off support to the Red Brigades.

As the Brigades became more radical and violent they also expanded into other regions of Italy striking against big industry and corporations. In 1975 a police attempt to rescue a hostage lead to a violent gun battle which left two police officers and Mara Cagol dead. This led to a campaign against Police and magistrates especially those who had been involved in the conviction of Red Brigade members. The most famous crime committed by the Red Brigades was in 1978, when they kidnapped and 56 days later murdered the politician Aldo Moro. The attack was well organised with members using stolen Alitalia plane company uniforms, and carrying out an ambush which left five of Moro’s bodyguards dead and him a prisoner of the Red Brigade. The Brigade wanted a semi official status as ‘insurgents’ but the Government refused to negotiate despite various pleading letters from Moro to his family , friends and even the Pope. The terrorists started to fear discovery and had lost faith with the chance of getting what they wanted so shot Moro more than ten times and as a final insult to the police dumped his body in a car near the Christian Democratic Party headquarters in Rome, despite the city being under tight surveillance.

The murder was counter productive, Aldo Moro had been a popular figure to people from both ends of the political spectrum, and the Italian left wing condemned the murder as did some of the imprisoned Brigade leaders. A further blow to the Brigade’s popularity came in 1979 when they shot and killed Guido Rossa, a popular trade Union official who had reported Brigade members for distributing propaganda. This killing lost the organisation much of the support from the factory workers. On the back of this loss in support the police made large inroads against the organisation arresting thousands of activists and forcing many others to flee to France or South America. Many those captured turned evidence and provided information to help capture other members in order to reduce their own prison sentences. Despite this decline in influence the Red Brigades were far from finished - on December 17th 1981 a small group kidnapped US Army Brigadier General Dozier who was at that time Deputy Chief of Staff for NATO Southern Land forces. 42 days later the General was rescued by Italian Special Forces from the apartment where he was being held.

Despite this alarming swansong the organisation was in its death throes and in 1984 it split into two factions and many of its former leaders renounced the idea of armed struggle while the support from the Soviet Block dried up. Isolated killings continued with the murders of the US Sinai Multinational Force commander Leamon Hunt in 1984, the ex-mayor of Florence Lando Conti in February 1986, General Licio Giorgieri in 1987, and Senator Roberto Ruffilli in 1988. Police operations in response led to many arrests and the Red Brigades had virtually ceased to exist as a meaningful entity by the end of 1988. A remnant of the group still exists, possibly a new group with very little connection to the old Red Brigades. It briefly resurfaced in the 1990s and early 2000s murdering several government advisors and some police in gunfights.

On October 23rd 2003 police raids in several areas of Italy, including Rome and Sardinia led to the arrest of several members of this group, four of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2005. It is possible other isolated cells remain and the Red Brigades were certainly a long time in dying even after Soviet support was cut off at the end of the Cold War, but any threat they still pose is more one of criminal activity than any meaningful political action. How to cite this article: Dugdale-Pointon, T. (19 November 2007), The Red Brigade Terrorist Group, Red Brigades | Mapping Militant Organizations Mapping Militant Organizations 1984 First Attack September 17, 1970: The Red Brigades set fire to the car of a factory manager in Milan. (0 killed) [1] Last Attack April 16, 1988: The Red Brigades kidnapped a chemical engineer in Mestre.

(No reported casualties) [2] Updated June 27, 2012 Narrative Summary The Red Brigades was Italy's largest, longest lasting, and most broadly diffused left-wing terrorist group. At its peak the organization had thousands of active members and supporters, with its strongest presence in the industrial cities of Northern Italy. [3] It sought to overthrow the democratic Italian state and replace it with a dictatorship of the proletariat. Its primary targets were symbols of capitalism and the Italian state. These included politicians, especially those of the center-right Christian Democratic party, law enforcement, and factories. The organization cast its armed activities as acts of self-defense, undertaken on behalf of workers facing repression from factory bosses and police. [4] The first pamphlet signed by the Red Brigades – then using the singular "Red Brigade," or "Brigata Rossa" – appeared at a Sit-Siemens plant in Milan in 1970 [5] , but the roots of the organization extend back to the late 1960s, as student and worker demonstrations spread throughout Italy and protestors increasingly clashed violently with the police.

The fall of 1968, known as the "autunno caldo" or "hot autumn," marked a high point in such violence as well as an organizational turning point as workers began to form collectives as alternatives to existing trade unions. The Red Brigades' founders are believed to have decided to take up arms during a November 28, 1969 meeting of the Metropolitan Political Collective (Collettivo Politico Metropolitano), a coordinating group of leftist student and worker movements, in Chiavari in the province of Genoa. [6] Some two weeks later, a bomb exploded in Milan's Piazza Fontana, killing 16 and wounding 87. At roughly the same time, two other bombs exploded in Rome, wounding 16. Suspicion for the day's carnage initially fell on the far left, members of which insisted that right-wing groups, likely aided by elements of state intelligence, had planned the attack as a provocation. [7] What later came to be known as the "Piazza Fontana Massacre" was seen on the left as the inauguration of a "strategy of tension" pursued by the right in cooperation with the state.

[8] Members of the Red Brigades attacked property rather than people until 1972; arson against factory managers' cars was particularly common, as were raids against the offices of right-wing organizations. [9] Beginning with the 1974 kidnapping of a Genoa magistrate, the Red Brigades expanded their attacks to include politicians and employees of the state. An April 1975 BR document outlining the organization's "Strategic Direction" identified Italy's long-dominant Christian Democratic party "the principal enemy." [10] The number of BR-directed attacks, including kidnappings and shootings, spiked between 1977 and 1979. The organization's best-known attack of the period was the kidnapping and killing of Christian Democratic leader and former prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978. The Red Brigades' activities began to decline in 1980. Members began being arrested at higher rates, and those arrested began increasingly to cooperate with authorities, leading to the capture of more members. The group split numerous times over the period. The Red Brigades ceased to exist as a unified organization around 1981.

Its core successor, the Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC) continued to stage high-profile attacks throughout the decade. The Red Brigades' original leaders, many of them in jail, continued to guide the BR-PCC until formally declaring the armed struggle finished in 1988. [11] Attacks have been carried out in Italy under the name "Red Brigades" as late as 2002, though the attackers are likely not formally connected to the original organization. [12] Leadership Antonio Savasta (Unknown to 1982): Savasta was the leader of the Venice branch of the Red Brigades. He was arrested in 1982. [13] Margherita Cagol (1970 to 1975): One of the founders of the Red Brigades, Cagol was Curcio's wife. She was killed in a shootout with police in June 1975. [14] Mario Moretti (1970 to 1981): Moretti was a founding member of the Red Brigades and confessed to having personally fired the shots that killed Christian Democratic Leader Aldo Moro.

He was arrested in 1981 and freed in 1998. [15] Renato Curcio (1970 to 1984): Police arrested Curcio, along with co-founder Franceschini, with the help of an informant in September 1974. Curcio remained in prison for about four months until a BR squad directed by his wife and co-founder Margherita Cagol freed him and several others from prison in February 1975. Following his release, Curcio was among the authors of an April 1975 document outlining the BR's "Strategic Direction" and identifying Italy's long-dominant Christian Democratic party "the principal enemy" and "the political and organizational center of reaction and terrorism." Curcio was recaptured in Milan in January 1976. He is believed to have continued to guide the organization from prison. [16] Alberto Franceschini (1970 to 1984): Franceschini was arrested along with Curcio in 1974. He is believed to have continued to guide the organization from prison.

Ideology & Goals Communist revolutionary Marxist The Red Brigades sought to seize political power in Italy with a strategy combining elements of the Maoist cultural revolution in China and the Leninist Bolshevik revolution in Russia. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be achieved in three phases; first, a period of "armed propaganda," followed by an attack on the "heart of the state," followed by a state of "generalized civil war" which would end with the overthrow of the state. [17] Size Estimates 1970: 50 (Terrorism and Security : the Italian Experience.) [18] 1979: 1,000 "militants" and "some 2,000 external support (Terrorism and Security: The Italian Experience.) [19] 1983: 100 "militants" and "200 external supporters." (Terrorism and Security: the Italian Experience.) [20] Designated/Listed N/A. [21] Resources The Red Brigades got some revenue from kidnappings for ransom and from theft, which is also how they often acquired weapons.

In absorbing smaller militant groups, the Red Brigades also took on their material assets, including those of the Gruppi di Azione Partigiana (GAP), which was financed by millionaire publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli until his death in 1972. [22] The group Soccorso Rosso (Red Aid) provided free legal services to left-wing operatives. By October 31, 1982, Italian police had discovered and dismantled some 200 bases belonging to the BR. [23] External Influences The Red Brigades were influenced in their ideology and methods by leftist and militant movements all over the world. As elements of the Italian left moved toward a strategy of political violence in 1967 and 1968, Uruguay's Tupamaros provided a model of urban guerilla warfare at the same time that Palestinian nationalist terrorism became more prominent in the wake of the Six-Day war of 1967. [24] Philosophically, the BR borrowed from Lenin and Mao.

More formally, members of the Red Brigades had contact with other Western European militant movements extant in the 1970s, especially Germany's Red Army Faction (RAF), whose 1977 kidnapping of business leader Hans Schleyer was the model for the Aldo Moro kidnapping a year later. [25] The BR are also believed to have had some connection with France's Actione Direct (AD) and have allegedly provided training for them. [26] Former Red Brigades members have told authorities that the BR acquired weapons from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), with Libya acting as intermediary, beginning in 1978 or before. [27] BR founders Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol visited Cuba. [28] There is disputed evidence that the Red Brigades may have received funding from "Eastern bloc" communist countries including Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. [29] One former brigadier has denied these contacts, saying "The RB was formally prohibited from having contact, making liaison, or receiving assistance from the Eastern Bloc." [30] A training camp outside of Benghazi, Libya was allegedly used by Italian terrorists.

Former members of the Red Brigades have denied press accounts of training abroad, however, saying that the BR instead used abandoned mines in Italy's mountains as training sites. [31] Geographical Locations Italian terrorist organizations of both the left and right were active primarily in the northwest and center of Italy. Left-wing groups concentrated on Milan, Turin, and Rome, whereas the militant right was most active in Milan and Rome. The BR was the only one of these groups with a strong presence in Genoa. [32] The merger with NAP gave the Red Brigades a foothold in Naples and elsewhere in the more-agrarian south, but the Red Brigades had difficulty sustaining formal "columns" there, particularly after NAP dissolved. [33] Though the BR had its strongest presence in the cities listed above, the organization was active in at least 16 of Italy's 20 regions over its lifespan. [34] Targets & Tactics The Red Brigades typically attacked factories and the offices of right-wing targets such as political parties or certain trade unions. In its first few years such attacks were only against property and most often took the form of office raids and car arson.

Early Red Brigades communiqués describe such attacks as punishments for specific "anti-worker" actions, such as the firing of a coworker: "For every comrade they hit, one of them must pay," or, more generally, "for every eye, two eyes; for every tooth, an entire face." Thus, when in late 1970 "first the bosses, then the unions" of Milan's Pirelli plant fired a 50-year-old mechanic, "one of them, precisely the 'first on the list' (as suggested by many of the factory workers), found his car destroyed." [35] The Red Brigades' 1971 "self-interview" describes such methods as a form of "armed propaganda," which served both to recruit new members and to demonstrate "the conniving between power groups and/or apparently separate institutions." [36] The Red Brigades claimed its first attack against an individual on March 3, 1972, with the kidnapping of a Sit-Siemens plant manager. They released him the same day.

After 1972, the Red Brigades carried out targeted killings and kidnappings of factory managers, magistrates, and political figures, particularly members of the Christian Democratic party. The BR was one of few left-wing terrorist groups to engage in kidnappings, and conducted by far the most of any left-wing terrorist group, 18 of 24 attributed to the entire terrorist left. [37] Most of the BR's kidnappings were political, whereas other Italian leftist terrorist groups typically kidnapped to raise funds through ransom. [38] The BR adopted the practice of mass leg-shootings, also called "kneecapping," in 1980, months after another leftist group, Front Line (PL), pioneered the tactic. [39] The Red Brigades did not carry out mass-casualty explosive attacks. There were four such attacks in Italy between 1969 and 1980, all attributed to right-wing terrorists. [40] Political Activities The Red Brigades abandoned overt political activity after a wave of arrests in 1972.

[41] Major Attacks April 18, 1974: Kidnapping of Genoa Assistant State Attorney Mario Sossi. Sossi was the sixth person, and the first state employee, kidnapped by the Red Brigades. In its claim of responsibility, the BR called the kidnapping an attack "on the heart of the state." The group released him on May 23 in exchange for a court order, later blocked, to release eight BR-affiliated prisoners. (). [42] June 17, 1974: The BR killed two members of the right-wing party Italian Social Movement (MSI). (2 killed). [43] November 16, 1977: BR operatives shot Carlo Casalegno, deputy editor of La Stampa newspaper, on a street in Turin in broad daylight. Casalegno died of his wounds on November 29. (1 killed). [44] March 16, 1978: The BR kidnapped Aldo Moro, president of the Christian Democratic party and a former prime minister. In the attack, members of the Red Brigades killed five of Moro's bodyguards.

On April 15, a BR communiqué announced that a "People's Tribunal" (Tribunale del Popolo) had tried Moro and had condemned him to death for his role in the "counter-revolutionary function of the [Christian Democrats]." Until May, however, BR communiqués offered to exchange Moro for 13 imprisoned BR members, including founders Franceschini and Curcio. The Italian government refused. Police found Moro's body in a car on May 9, 1978. (1 killed). [45] May 20, 1981: The Red Brigades kidnapped a chemical engineer in Mestre. It was the last attack claimed with the name "Red Brigades" as the organization split into factions. (0). [46] Relationships with Other Groups The Red Brigades was the largest left-wing terrorist organization in Italy, and most other left-wing Italian terrorist groups had some relationship to it as either rivals or allies. Other organizations later split off from the BR or were absorbed by it. The BR's most important ideological rival was Front Line (PL), the second-largest left-wing terrorist group in Italy.

Several of the PL's founders were dissident members of the BR who left the group because of its strict hierarchy and the centrality of the armed struggle to its political agenda. The PL viewed the hierarchy as counterproductive, and the armed struggle as merely a tactic in a larger political program. The Red Brigades may have begun to cooperate with the PL in the late 1970s as the smaller organization declined and began calling for a unified proletarian force. The BR's symbol, a five-pointed star, appeared on the PL's claim of responsibility for a 1979 attack on a Turin school. [47] The BR formed an alliance with Naples-based Armed Proletarian Nuclei (NAP) in 1976. The BR had had difficulty extending its reach into agrarian southern Italy due to its focus on the class struggle in factories, which were concentrated in the industrial north. [48] Most of NAP's leadership was arrested shortly after that, and the BR absorbed the remainder of the group's assets and members.

[49] The BR absorbed several other smaller groups as well, including Partisan Action Groups (GAP), which merged with the Red Brigades in 1970 after itself absorbing the October XXII Circle. [50] The BR itself began to decline with the arrest of many of its leaders in the early 1980s. The group split; its main successors were the Red Brigades Walter Alasia Column (BR-WA), the Red Brigades Guerrila Party (BR-PG), and the Red Brigades Fighting Communist Party (BR-PCC). Community Relationships Leftist extraparliamentary organizations represented a recruitment pool and a source of logistical and public relations support for the BR, especially Workers' Autonomy (Autonomia Operaia, AUTOP) and Workers' Power (Potere Operaiao, POTOP or PO). [51] This latter group formally dissolved in 1973, though prosecutors investigating the case argued that the "dissolution" was a cover for members' deciding to take up arms with the Red Brigades and others. [52] References ^ Barbato, Tullio. Il Terrorismo In Italia Negli Anni Settanta : Cronaca E Documentazione.

Milano: Bibliografica, 1980. p. 52 ^ Brigaterosse.org. "Breve storia delle Brigate Rosse (1970-1987), Parte III." Last updated March 15, 2007. Retrieved April 15, 2012, from . ^ Della Porta, Donatella. Il Terrorismo Di Sinistra. Bologna: Il mulino, 1990. p. 92. ^ Brigate Rosse, "Prima intervista a se stessi," 1971. Available: ^ Barbato, Tullio. Il Terrorismo In Italia Negli Anni Settanta : Cronaca E Documentazione. Milano: Bibliografica, 1980.

Question: Which terrorist group murdered Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro?
Answer: Red Brigade